Youth must be protected from flavoured tobacco
The Alberta government deserves full marks for its efforts to protect children and youth from the serious health implications of tobacco use.
The proposed ban on flavoured tobacco products, Bill 206, will help stem the use of gateway tobacco products by young people, such as strawberry-flavoured cigarillos, menthol cigarettes, citrus smokeless tobacco and watermelon water pipe tobacco. These flavours mask the harshness of tobacco, which make the product more palatable and increase the likelihood of addiction among children and youth. Tobacco companies have developed flavoured products in order to attract and retain new users.
Over the past decade, tobacco companies have flooded the market with flavoured tobacco products and the impact is devastating.
According to Health Canada’s Youth Smoking Survey, over half of all youth tobacco users in Alberta — 28,000 girls and boys in grades 6 to 12 — are now using flavoured tobacco products. Roughly one half of these kids are smoking menthol cigarettes. These numbers are completely unacceptable and warrant a full ban on all flavoured tobacco products.
The tobacco industry’s own internal documents reveal that tobacco companies are targeting youth with flavoured tobacco products. According to a courtordered document from Philip Morris, flavoured tobacco creates a “high curiosity to try factor.” Another document from R.J. Reynolds reports that “flavoured cigarettes appeal to women … (and) younger smokers.”
The 2012 Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey revealed that young smokers aged 15 to 19 are using flavoured cigarillos at a significantly higher rate than adults. The 2010-11 Youth Smoking Survey revealed that 32 per cent of youth smokers are using menthol cigarettes, although menthols represent less than five per cent of the total adult cigarette market.
We simply cannot allow tobacco companies to brazenly target children and youth with flavoured tobacco products.
The provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick have all passed laws that provide broad regulatory authority over flavoured tobacco products. It’s time for Alberta to catch up and to protect Alberta kids from these gateway products.
Bill 33 will complement the ban on flavoured tobacco by placing further restrictions on tobacco sales to minors. The bill will also protect children and youth from second-hand smoke in vehicles containing minors and will extend the ban on smoking in public establishments to include water pipe use.
The bottom line is that Alberta kids deserve first-class protection from all forms of smoking, tobacco use and marketing. We cannot stand by and watch the tobacco industry recruit another generation of youth smokers. It’s time to put a stop to the industry’s shameful and predatory marketing practices.
Taken together, bills 206 and 33 represent some of the strongest measures to reduce youth tobacco use in Canada and they will help to keep thousands of Alberta kids tobacco-free for life.
It’s very encouraging to know that the Alberta government is putting the interests of kids ahead of those who would profit from their addiction and premature death.